WHEN A POET DIES -
EVEN THE CLOWNS CRY!
(Homage to Rafael Alberti & Garcia Lorca)
Ric Polansky ©
Last week there was a whispered silence not heard for a very long time in the kingdom. An eerie pitched howl that reverberated across this land held tightly by ancient seas. Spain was in mourning. Yes, the cafeterias and bars were full to overflowing and yet it wasn’t the same. Momentarily deep rooted feuds and suspicions forget themselves. The noise had less din. Even the high pitched scream of the cafeteria steaming indignantly at the milk couldn’t drown away the sorrow. Jibes between friends weren’t as taunting, nor were the heart felt coos between lovers quite as soft and affectionate.
The topics of conversation never varied. Spain adores it’s singers those of the soul searching “cante hondo” or of the modern Latin beat; it worships it’s footballer’s, is proud beyond belief of it’s sportsmen, the golfers and tennis stars and even has a platform of respect for it’s politicians. But, when a poet dies the nation grieves. A blue melancholy sigh drifts through the lands careening from the budding skyscrapers of the Industrial north blowing through the plains of La Mancha and bouncing off the hills and the snow peaked mountain caps of the Sierra’s. In Madrid and Barcelona the perpetual race to and from work miraculously slows a noticeable pace. In the farming high lands old berets, once believed to belong permanently perched on top of balding heads, were plucked off and lowered for respect. A nation of housewives took an extra long stare from their city or village windows thinking once again the thoughts that should have been or that once were. The birds did not take wing. So it was recently with the death of my friend Rafael Alberti, dramatist, painter, lecturer, poet, kind and considerate man.
Rafael was a friend of mine, a close one, an unforgettable companion. Even though I had known him once for but twelve prolonged hours discussing poetry, I held him forever dear to me from reading him. So did everyone else affected by his narratives. His verse gave meaning to a senseless world. Alberti’s words reminded us of beauty and elegance: where once flower laden fields swayed in the breezes of a languid spring day, now only tall buildings stand erect and motionless as sentries guarding their memory. Poets are that way. They bestow honour and magnificence to a confusing world that needs something to garland or dignify it. When poets are read-- they belong to us and of course we to them. We too become universal and one with all.
One fond thought concerning a poet should allow a deluge of pleasant recollections, and of course, of favourite verses, odes and ballads from other bards. Rafael Alberti was part of the intellectual group known as the generation of ’27. Picasso, Dali, Brunel, etc. But no other was revered as much as Granadino Poet Federico Garcia Lorca. On the eve of the Spanish civil war he was arrested in his home, taken to a nearby hillside and shot. Murdered. An accident of war he would write no more. He was but thirty eight years old.
If you haven’t read Garcia Lorca in his native tongue, do so. He is so universal you can read his poems with but a touch of scholarship and obtain an acceptable meaning. And, as your knowledge grows so too will your respect for the new flavours and scents that emerge from each further reading of the same ballad.
Allow me to begin my journey to the poet’s corner at the end, high on a hill underneath a blissful warming full sun. In front of me to the far right I can see the rolling hills of Granada’s famed Vega. Farming country dotted with olive trees and the occasional tractor stirring up the dust. Further to my left are higher bluffs that just block out the silhouette of Granada’s heroic Alhambra Palace. Further to my left is the vine covered village of Viznar, quiet, serene, reposing as having never been disturbed, having lived forever in this same tranquil setting. Late blooming roses have opened their white petals in an exaggerated embrace of the sun’s warmth. Just outside the village is a spot where a tourist sign with a large camera on it should have been erected announcing pictures should be snapped of the vibrant panorama. Instead, resides stone steps beckoning one to journey up a little higher through the Moorish designed gates to a circular amphitheatre. In the centre is a large stone of granite. On it, yes, carved in stone the poets death is proclaimed. As near as historians can ascertain, this location was where humanity put a gun to Federico Garcia Lorca’s head. BANG! A whiff of white smoke stained the green countryside and then instantly became a cloud. Orders completed. The bothersome poet was no more. Rumours said that the Guardia Civil did it, as in Lorca’s ditty “ those of the patent leather hats and patent leather souls” but no one claims the notch in their gun.
On the encompassing wall surrounding the monument are a few tiled placards of his poems. One reads: Si la muerte es la muerte // Que sera de los poetas // y de las cosas dormidas // Que ya nadie las recuerda? // Oh sol de los esperanzas! // Agua clara! luna nueva! // Corazones de los ninos! // Almas rudas de la piedra! // Hoy siento en el corazon // Un vago temblor de estrellas // Y todos las rosas son // Tan blancas como mi pena.”
I read it twice and then a third time. Each reading my eyes well up with tears. I feel there is nothing more natural for me to do but also fall to the ground and sob, a gentle controlled weep for all the inhumanities that Lorca’s death unfortunately celebrates. I try to calm my stuttering speech. Intellectualize. Be the man I presume I am. Stop the unmanly flow of tears. The macho man speaks: “What bothers me, what bothers me most was that he wrote it eighty years ago, at the age of twenty, before he could shave, he already knew his fate. As if he knew he would die, as if he knew he would be buried here. As if he knew the pain would be embraced by the surrounding white roses.” There was no one there to hear me speak. But I had to say the words anyway. They were a catharsis for my soul, a purging of my heart, mind and spirit. Yes, the death of a poet can do that, even make a clown cry.
Bocadillos (inserts): Poets…bestow honour and magnificence to a confusing world that needs something to garland or dignify it.
